Can I thank my Treaty partner “Hone”
Banks for allowing me to have his final five minutes.

In case there is any doubt, we are talking about the
Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill. This is
not the first time that Māori have encountered controversy
around the concept of marriage. In 1888 the Supreme Court of
New Zealand made a decision that has been described as
“doubtful legally and deplorable socially”. That
doubtful and deplorable decision was to reject the customary
marriages that had existed mai rānō, and to assume that
the marriage law of England took precedence.

In
fact, the colonial law from another land was considered of
such importance that the children of Māori customary
marriages were then described as “illegitimate”, yet so
significant was the status of customary marriages amongst
our people that they continued to be recognised for the
purposes of succession to Māori land until 1951.

So when opponents of this bill criticise a change to the
definition of marriage as contravening our sacred
traditions, I would have to say “Whose traditions are we
talking about?”.

I want to bring a specific
contribution to this House as a proud uri of Ngāti
Rangiwewehi, Te Arawa waka—yeah! In 1849 Wīremu Maihi
Te Rangikāheke of Ngāti Rangiwewehi shared his knowledge
of our Atua in a publication called Ngā Tama a
Rangi. It is one of those stories I want to bring to the
House with me today. You, sir, may well have heard the story
about Hinemoa and Tūtānekai, a story of love glorified
by Victorian settlers, with all the markings of romance.
According to tribal law, Hinemoa swam to Mokoia in the
middle of Rotorua to be with her true loved one—everybody
say “Ah.”

Hon Members: Ah.

But I am going to add an extra part to the story, and
tell you instead about Tūtānekai and Tiki. Before
Tūtānekai married Hinemoa, he had a close male companion,
Tiki. In a manuscript by Te Rangikāheke, Tūtānekai says
to his father: “Ka aroha atu a Tūtānekai ki a Tiki, ka
mea atu ki a Whakaue: ‘Ka mate ahau i te aroha ki toku
hoa, ki a Tiki.’”Translated: “Tūtānekai loved
Tiki and said to Whakaue: ‘I am stricken with love for my
friend, for Tiki.’” Later, Tūtānekai refers to Tiki as
“tāku hoa takatāpui”.

So, from the wisdom of
Ngāti Rangiwewehi, a new word was coined: “takatāpui”,
defined in the Dictionary of the Maori Language
compiled by the missionary Henry Williams in 1844 as
“an intimate companion of the same sex”.
“Takatāpui” is now used universally to describe
people who might otherwise describe themselves as gay,
lesbian, transgender, bisexual, or intersexual.

This history is set out by a Māori academic—not of
Ngāti Rangiwewehi, but nevertheless—Dr Clive Aspin in
his analysis of “Hōkakatanga - Māori sexualities”.

The research tracked fast forward to the early
2000s, with the Māori sexuality project undertaken at
Auckland University. Many of the respondents to that
research were able to recall examples of their kaumātua
and kuia talking about people they knew who had same-sex
attraction. These people held traditions of importance and
status within their whānau and hapū. According to Dr
Aspin, they were not rejected or marginalised, and were
considered to be valuable members of their communities.

Talking about our history, our shared history in
Aotearoa, is really important. We all know another painful
history of discrimination, of prejudice, and of homophobia
expressed by other members in this House tonight. Young
people are in such agony about the way that they live their
lives that suicide becomes the only option—a people living
in fear and shame, scared of the harassment that they have
all too often experienced. Some of the lobbying that every
MP has endured over this last nine months has shown us the
ugliness of stigma that has been hurled at Louisa Wall—ki
a tāku tuahine, ka nui te mihi ki a koe.

So I urge
all of us to think deeply about the universal values of
aroha, of commitment, of whakawhanaungatanga, of trust, of
faith, and of hope—kaupapa tuku iho.

As this
third reading comes to an end, I think about tamariki and
mokopuna who now know that they do not have to hide the fact
that there are two mums in their household, about parents
who want to know that their son can marry the man of his
dreams and they can be all out and proud on their special
day, and about all of our whānau takatāpui who celebrate
tonight as a day on which history is made; in which their
exceptional love– the love that endures all - is finally
able to dare to say its name out
loud.

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